


Kazino

by numot94 (futureplans)



Category: Dreamcatcher (Korea Band)
Genre: Addiction, Angst, F/F, Gambling, Hurt/Comfort, I repeat there is no smut sorry, Minor Violence, rated for themes, references to human trafficking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-07
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-13 08:40:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29898483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/futureplans/pseuds/numot94
Summary: Attending university by day and working at her father's illegal gambling room by night, Yoohyeon has been counting the days until she can escape her life for longer than she can tell. But when Siyeon shows up, so young and pretty and out of place, she can't help but fall deeper into the world she vowed she'd never surrender to.
Relationships: Kim Yoohyeon/Lee Siyeon
Comments: 3
Kudos: 52





	Kazino

**Author's Note:**

> I’m back with another fic! This time I’ve gone for something a little different, so here is my very first dreamcatcher story ^^ It’s inspired by the MV for Bibi’s Kazino, which I recommend you watch (after reading, if you don’t want spoilers eheh)

Sometimes, Yoohyeon will sit on the cool tile of the laundromat and watch the large empty drums of the washing machines all around her, the way the metal inside glistens and shifts under the light as she tilts her head one way and the other.

Washing machines are so loud. All day, they run on and on, spinning endlessly, shaking against each other, as if struggling to break free. Over the constant droning of the engines, there’s a jolting unpredictable pattern, heavy bundles striking the walls that confine them, small objects coming loose and rattling around the rest.

At night, the room is empty, and silent, and dark. Then, Yoohyeon will sit on the cool tile and let the light from outside filter in through the shuttered windows, reflect on the spotless steel drums. She’ll watch the patterns and slowly grow attuned to the dark and the silence, and it’ll grow harder and harder to ignore the sounds coming from the back room.

The front of the laundromat is bright, shiny. It’s a clean blue, tinged yellow by the streetlights. In the daytime, it’s crowded. In the night, it still smells faintly of laundry detergent. The front of the laundromat has a dozen or so machines, hardly enough.

The back room is bigger, walls lined with rows of washers and dryers. It’s a wider room, with two lines of benches along the open space in the middle. The floor isn’t so shiny, and all day the customers wonder why it always smells faintly of tobacco.

Before it gets too late, Yoohyeon gets up, breaks the peaceful bubble that she’s created for herself and steps inside. All at once, she’s struck by the smell of tobacco and alcohol, hanging thick in the air. Her eyes sting in the bleary light, flickering and smothered by smoke.

“Ah, there you are. How was school? Go get cleaned up and changed, we’re low on girls tonight.”

Just like that, her father has come and gone, precariously carrying half a dozen glasses of something dark and strong that he fans out on a table of regulars, half-smile glinting in the half-light. They smack him on the back, some respectful, some amused, as he settles on an empty chair.

Yoohyeon crosses the room, dodging tables and drunk patrons and hurrying girls barely older than herself, and climbs the stairs to her home. She drops her school bag in her room, homework spilling out that she promises herself she’ll come back to later, washes up quickly, slips on the uniform.

It’s the same thing every night. She brings drinks to the men sitting around the betting tables, leering at her then down to their cards as they slip a tip her way. She mops up any spills before they can stain and leave incriminating marks for the morning crowd. She avoids wandering hands, avoids the regulars with the worst reputations, avoids the other girls, those more carefully than anything else.

“You’re nothing like them,” her father always repeats. “They’ve already thrown their lives away, making a living in a place like this. You, you’ve got a businessman for a father, putting you through university. They’ve got nothing to offer you, you’ve got to realize that. So you make sure they stay away from you.”

It’s not like she could ever do anything else. They must have gotten the same speech, or some harsher version of it, because they hardly even make eye contact. They roam the place, dutifully fulfilling their obligations, accepting the gropes that Yoohyeon avoids and the tips that follow, amid roaring laughter that makes Yoohyeon’s chest go tight and hard, no matter how much she tries to shut it out.

Is she so different from them, she sometimes thinks. She’s down here every night, just like them. She wears the same uniform, takes the same tips, gets the same looks. The only difference is she doesn’t get to leave. Nobody lasts more than a few months, an endless cycle of pretty faces that merges together until all she knows is every girl in this room will be gone before the year is over, off to places with better pay or better patrons, except for herself.

(…)

There are no women in the laundromat at night, at least not sitting at the tables. Not even the occasional girlfriend brought as a lucky talisman. Maybe none of them know what their men are doing after work, maybe it’s the men that don’t want them there, where they know how freely hands and eyes roam where they’re not invited.

No women come to gamble. The rare few who tried in the past never lasted very long. Pretty, ugly, young, old, they all drew too much attention, too many comments, rarely pleasant. Yoohyeon can’t imagine why they’d want to be here, in the first place.

But that’s the reason why the entire room reacts the way it does when _she_ walks in.

Not that tall, not that bulky, not that imposing, but the world dies down to silence in a second. They all sit there, dozens of men, watching her with narrowing eyes. She barely seems to notice, only makes her way inside the place, takes the first empty seat she finds.

“We’re not hiring,” Yoohyeon’s father calls out a few tables over. Then he slowly gets to his feet, chair scraping back on the floor, making no move to approach the girl.

She _is_ a girl. So young. Probably Yoohyeon’s age. They might have come across each other just walking down the halls at university. There, she’d fit right in, an edgy girl with short hair bleached white-blonde, careless make-up, ripped jeans. Here, she looks like a harmless little thing, too soft beneath her glaring eyes.

“I’m not looking,” she throws back lazily, almost a drawl. Her eyes flit across the watching crowd, in blank acknowledgment of the cold reception.

“Then you should go _not look_ somewhere else.”

The girl’s head swivels until she meets his eye. Her eyebrows raise, questioning. “Curious way to run a business, chasing your patrons away.”

“You’re not a patron, you’re a little girl.” A few of the men chuckle at that. So does she.

“Come on, boss man. Look, I fit right in.” Shamelessly, she reaches for the nearest waitress, shock still as she follows the scene, and slips the drink from her hand with a wink. She downs half its contents, scrunching up her features into the parody of a scowl as she sets it back on the table.

The act draws even more laughter, a few men exchanging amused comments in low voices. Yoohyeon watches her father weigh the situation in a new light, read in the turning tide of the room that he’s quickly becoming the butt of the joke. She steps closer without realizing, helpless to put a stop to it before the girl gets herself in real danger.

He reaches for the nearest girl too. She’s half his age, they’re all half his age. Young enough to be his daughters. His hand settles on her behind and squeezes, enough that she starts in place. He smiles, a vacant ostentatious grin. “Little girls can drink. But there are other things they can’t do.”

The crass humour gives way to a wave of hoots and cheers, hands slamming on tables in approval. The girl smiles, again, unphased, and shrugs.

“You want my money or not, boss man?” she eventually asks, once the din dies down. She leans back in her chair, hands abandoning the stolen drink to burrow in the pockets of her oversized jacket. “This a gambling place, isn’t it? So let’s gamble for it.”

“Gamble for it,” Yoohyeon’s father repeats suspiciously. The girl nods and pulls a hand free, revealing a stack of bills that she holds in the air.

“I came here to spend my money. So why don’t you and I play a hand? I win, you let me stay and spend it. You win, you can have it and I’ll be out of your hair.”

She’s got him. He can’t say no to an offer like that, from someone like her. He must realize it as well, although he takes his time to mull it over before he accepts the conditions with a silent nod. The girl takes the hint and pushes herself off of the chair, makes her way to his table.

All the games stop. The crowd watches the two of them, weighing up each in turn. The regulars know all about the boss’s tells, his poker face pitifully transparent. The girl is a mystery, but she’s also just a girl. Can she really win?

The players go through the motions amid near silence, calls and bets and swapped cards following each other with only the whisper of paper on cloth. Yoohyeon watches her father’s face fall. His eyebrow twitches once, twice, as his grip on the cards tightens before he slips them face-down yet again. The watchers exchange knowing looks.

The girl is still a mystery. She calls out her actions, glances at her cards in a flash, pushes more and more money into the centre pile, always with her unnerving smile. Unreadable.

They make the last trades. They spare one last look at their cards. The girl pushes all of her money in. Yoohyeon’s father reveals his hand. A pair of fives.

Every breath catches in every throat. The girl watches her opponent’s cards, one by one, then raises her eyes to face him, lips spread into a grin. His eyes are wide and bloodshot. She flips her hand over.

She has nothing. Absolutely nothing. Just five mismatched cards, worthless. She lets the cards flutter to the table, leaning back in her seat with the same careless grin.

The room explodes into raucous laughter. The men raise their glasses in amused cheers, and at least three drinks find their way to the table, another to the girl’s hands. She drinks whatever she’s been given without a second thought, still silently watching her opponent.

Yoohyeon’s father gathers up the bills, stacking them up neatly. He cleans up the cards and adds them to the deck. He fixes his eyes on her. Then he, too, breaks into laughter, a heavy hand falling on the girl’s shoulder with a dull smack.

“You got nerve, girl. Do you even know how to play?”

“I have my lucky days.” More laughter. She drinks it in placidly. “So is this goodbye, boss man?”

 _You’ve got a businessman for a father_.

“What the hell, you’re good for a laugh,” Yoohyeon’s father gives in good-naturedly, to a few calls of “good man!” from the crowd. Still, he takes the money without a second thought, patting down the pocket of his jacket. “Come back when you’ve got some more to spend.” He’s counting on it, on the place running a hole in her pockets and draining her dry.

The girl doesn’t say another word. With another grin, she empties her drink, gets to her feet and walks out the door.

Yoohyeon rushes out as soon as she can manage without drawing suspicion, careful for her father’s watching eye, only hoping the girl hasn’t already disappeared down some alley.

Instead, she finds her pushing off of the nearest wall and stubbing down the end of a cigarette. She turns to face Yoohyeon, a hint of curiosity under the veneer of disinterest.

“You’re up to something.”

“I didn’t know you girls were allowed to talk,” the girl drawls out in sarcastic response.

“My father is a terrible player,” Yoohyeon insists, suddenly self-conscious in her uniform.

“Oh. You’re the boss man’s kid.” Barely seeming to pay attention, the girl is already getting on her bike, parked around the corner from the laundromat. “And he’s putting you to work in his luxurious establishment? Classy.”

“He had nothing, you must have known that. Even I could tell.” Did she throw the game for some reason? Was she testing him? But why would she even care how well he plays?

She reaches for her helmet, hanging from the handle. “Listen, kid, sometimes you’ve got to bet big to win big. That means taking a few losses on the chin.”

Yoohyeon weighs the words in the quick moments before the girl takes off. They only confirm her suspicions. She steps to the side, just enough to obstruct the bike’s path. “So did you win?”

The girl pauses at that, finally lifts her eyes to study Yoohyeon. Just like inside, she smirks, looking both self-assured and hopelessly out of place. “What’s your name, boss man’s kid?”

“It’s, uh, Yoohyeon,” she stutters out, caught off guard.

“Yoohyeon. Huh. I’m Siyeon. Guess I’ll be seeing you around.”

And with that, she’s off.

(...)

Siyeon comes to the laundromat a few times a week. Every day, her entrance draws fewer looks, although the attention never quite dies down. Like the first time, she’ll take a seat at the nearest table, no preference for gambling partners or dealers. She’ll grab a drink from the first tray that passes her way, always throwing a wink in lieu of tip, and take the cards she’s dealt without hesitation.

Sometimes she’ll light one of her cheap cigarettes, look unflinchingly into the eyes of the man across from her as she blows out the smoke in thick clouds that sail past his head.

Her poker face is perfect, but she loses as often as she wins. She plays quickly, making snap decisions, slamming a wave of chips into the pot with nothing but a low pair, or meekly calling while a full house sits in her hand. When she wins, she buys rounds. When she loses, she eyes her dwindling money with a cynical smirk.

When she runs out, she reaches for one final drink and sips it slowly, carelessly, her whole body relaxed with a sort of hopeless finality. Like she’s done what she came here to do.

Yoohyeon is used to seeing men squirm as their last pennies run out, take longer and longer to weigh their decisions, growl out angry threats at any suspicion of cheating. The ones like Siyeon are the minority. The ones who gamble, not for money or for the thrill of the win, but for its own sake.

“She’s some rich punk, you know,” her father mutters around a bite of his noodles.

Yoohyeon doesn’t like being home for dinner, prefers letting the hours stretch at the university and only making it back after nightfall, but she can’t avoid it forever. When they eat together, it’s a quiet, hasty affair, store-bought meals in their tiny kitchen before he rushes downstairs and she quickly has to follow.

Siyeon took a drink from her tray, last night. She looked up at her, as she does with all the girls, and threw her a wink. Two tables over, Yoohyeon could see the darkness clouding over her father’s face. Siyeon knew what she was doing, and for some reason that made Yoohyeon take a rebellious pleasure in it, rather than any apprehension. She wanted to offer a smile in return, to linger, to reach over her shoulder and point out which cards to exchange. All the little things that all the men requested of the girls with lascivious grins. All the things they requested of her.

She didn’t.

She nods silently at his words, lets his irritation disperse in unchallenged expression. But she knows that he is wrong. Siyeon isn’t rich. Her clothes are cheap and used, her leather jacket beginning to fray. The money she comes in to spend is all she can spare, Yoohyeon is sure of it. Still, she nods, and lets his self-righteous judgment bring him peace.

Easy cash from the rich punk. That’s worth the winking. That’s the balance he’s been making since Yoohyeon started working at the laundromat, isn’t it?

She didn’t use to do it. Not at first. When the laundromat finances finally stabilized just below profitable, when her father took the harsh decision that had to be made, for his livelihood, for his family.

He kept her away from everything with single-minded fervour, pulled her out of cram school so she’d always be home before the gambling started. She used to rush home from school, hurrying across the forbidden room, already fitted with the tables but sitting eerily empty, eerily bright.

It took years, although it feels like barely a moment now. It took years for him to waver in his resolution, to begin to comment on how she’d become an adult, turned 20, old enough to understand how things worked, to earn her keep under his roof. He said it pleasantly, goading, like he was offering her an important life lesson. She never even considered saying no. She wanted to help.

It took a long time, even after that, to realize the truth. To see him, more and more often, sit down with the clients, share a drink and then a smoke and then a quick game. Put in his own money, laugh uproariously, then begin to falter, to sweat, to rummage in his pockets, to tap at each of his cards in turn, as if begging them to change in his hand. He had so many tells. It was no wonder he always ended up losing.

The business began to change. All the regular girls started to drop off, one by one, and the new ones were more eager but also more inexperienced. They all dropped off too, as Yoohyeon imagined their salaries getting cut again and again. Then it was just her and a sea of shifting faces, too many to try to keep track. Girls, younger and younger, who came because they had nothing better, then vanished into the night, who were “nothing like her.” 

But he lets her work with them. He lets her get winked at, and leered at, and grazed by ungentle hands. It’s the balance he makes.

Yoohyeon finishes her noodles and goes downstairs.

(…)

It shouldn’t come as such a surprise when it happens, but Yoohyeon’s breath still catches in her throat as Siyeon walks into the laundromat with her usual swagger and turns her way to reveal a cheekbone that is swollen and scraped, flecks of dried blood running down her cheek.

People like Siyeon get in trouble, and trouble doesn’t always look pretty. Yoohyeon knows this, has had plenty of chances to learn. She knows what a man looks like after taking a fist to the face with the full force of a body behind it, has seen blades being drawn from their hiding places, slicing razor-sharp and nearly invisible, drawing precise lines of red that slowly trickle in uneven drops.

But it all looks so small against the hulking men, unfelt grazes, colouring concealed under scars and shaggy beards. She isn’t used to seeing the marks stand out so sharply, so painfully against porcelain skin.

The men at Siyeon’s table notice the scrape and grunt in amusement. “You’re looking a little roughed up there, punk,” calls out a tall one with a grating voice, using the nickname that has quickly become popular. “Can’t hold your own, huh?”

“What’d you do, cut in line at the playground?” comes from the next table over, followed by a few snorts. Siyeon lifts her head from her cards and smiles caustically.

“Fell off my bike,” she lies smoothly. Just like after her disastrous first game, she seems to take some pleasure in the ensuing laughter at her expense, like she knows something they don’t. Yoohyeon sometimes wishes she had some of that self-assurance, to brush off humiliation so completely that you end up looking like the only one in on the joke.

She supposes one way to do it is to not care, as thoroughly and irreparably as Siyeon does. But it has its disadvantages, as the flakes of dried blood on her cheek remind Yoohyeon.

“Next time, you should get your daddy to give you a ride,” a man suggests from the back, joining in the fun. Yoohyeon’s father is sitting next to him, smiling idly at the joke as he studies his cards.

“Yeah, I’ll be sure to ask him,” Siyeon replies flippantly.

The laughter slowly dies down to a few amused smiles, and then business as usual. Glancing at her father again, Yoohyeon finds him studying her with a furrowed brow. She lets her eyes drift away casually and returns to serving drinks.

Siyeon wins big that night. It’s not noticeable at first; Yoohyeon never catches sight of any flashy perfect hands splayed out on the table as the more theatrical patrons like to do. It’s just a slow building up, a care that Siyeon doesn’t usually take with her plays. She flits from table to table, and each time as she rises, her hands hide another small bundle of bills in the pockets of her jacket.

Yoohyeon doesn’t want to connect it with the bloody cheek. It’s none of her business anyway, and what does she care what some lost girl decides to do in her father’s gambling house?

When Siyeon leaves, she follows her outside. The girl lights a cigarette and watches her approach without reaction.

“You didn’t play like a lunatic tonight.”

Siyeon’s nose wrinkles, more amusement than offense. “A backhanded sort of compliment, but I’ll take it.”

“I didn’t say it was a compliment.” That one brings out a smile.

“Just a statement, then. So I’ll know how clever you are?” Siyeon offers, a little too acid, but Yoohyeon brushes it off.

“Did you put anything on that?” She nods at the swollen cheek, which makes the girl oddly self-conscious.

“It’s fine.”

“That’s a no.” Siyeon’s eyebrow raises, probably another dig at _how clever_ Yoohyeon is. She ignores that too, reaching for the hand not holding the forgotten stub of cigarette. It’s an instinctive gesture, but Siyeon’s obvious confusion makes it immediately awkward. Still, she doesn’t let go. “Come on.”

Siyeon protests, but doesn’t actually offer any resistance as she is dragged to the tiny door to the side of the laundromat and ushered up the narrow stairs to Yoohyeon’s home. In the kitchen, Yoohyeon offers up one of the chairs and goes to rummage in the freezer for something yielding enough to press to the bruise.

“I think it might be a little late for ice,” Siyeon eventually pipes in, cutting her explorations short. She’s right. Yoohyeon shuts the freezer and hurries to the bathroom, returning with a cotton pad soaked in antibiotic.

She sits next to Siyeon at the small table, pad in hand. Siyeon eyes it like it’s the most dangerous thing she’s faced tonight and Yoohyeon quickly decides against letting the girl clean her own cut. She leans forward and presses the pad against Siyeon’s cheek, ignoring her hiss of pain. If she’s brave enough to get bruised up, she’s brave enough for this.

“How did you get this?” Yoohyeon asks, the edge of displeasure clear in her voice.

“Fell off my bike,” Siyeon repeats. It isn’t any more convincing the second time around.

“No, you didn’t.”

“No, really, I’m a very reckless driver.”

She presses a little harder, raising her eyes challengingly towards Siyeon as she hisses louder. Some of the blood has been wiped clean, the rest turns out to be more scrapes below the main blow.

“You cut your cheek over the helmet,” she summarizes. _Clever_ , twinkle Siyeon’s eyes, in an annoyed sort of way.

“Okay, Sherlock Holmes,” she huffs out. Yoohyeon relieves some of the pressure, pity finally winning out as the girl gives in. “Let’s just say some people in my life disagree with the way I’ve decided to spend my money. People with a vested interest in it.”

“Meaning it’s their money.”

For a moment, she thinks there will be another pointless quip, but Siyeon seems to have adjusted to the reality in which Yoohyeon notices a lot more than she’s given credit for.

“It’s mine,” Siyeon says defensively. “Until it’s theirs again. We just disagreed on when exactly that moment would be.”

Certainly a harmless way of phrasing such a colossal error in judgment. Yoohyeon lets her hand drop to the table, judging the cleaning unsafe for Siyeon until she gets her frustration in check.

“You’re messing with loan sharks? Seriously?”

“Oh, this isn’t loan sharks. You’d know if it was loan sharks,” Siyeon fires back dismissively. It does nothing to dispel the knot in Yoohyeon’s stomach. Siyeon is too young, too good for this. It could so easily be Yoohyeon sitting in that chair, sporting that bruise.

Is that what it is? Does it all hit so much closer to home because it’s in the shape of someone so much like herself? Does it spell out a likely future, if she isn’t careful, if she doesn’t watch over herself every step of the way? She balls up the cotton pad in her hand, the liquid bleeding out and making her fingers slippery and cold.

“Hey, relax, I can pay them back with what I made tonight,” Siyeon quickly adds, misunderstanding her reaction. Or maybe she doesn’t. Yoohyeon isn’t sure. She hates the sight of that angry red against Siyeon’s pale skin. Is that all projection? The alternative doesn’t seem very reassuring either.

“And next time?”

Siyeon shrugs. “I can handle a few more tumbles off my bike,” she offers in poor humour. “I’ve got young bones.”

Bones?! Yoohyeon’s gaze immediately slips from Siyeon’s face as she scans the clothes covering the rest of her, that could be hiding any number of bruises.

Siyeon follows her gaze, self-conscious again. “What?”

“Are you hurt anywhere else?”

“Want a look?” the girl drawls in response, and it’s such a transparent deflection that Yoohyeon hates even more how it throws her.

“You should ice your bruises,” she admonishes coldly, ignoring the question. She tilts her chin towards the messy cut, only slightly improved by her efforts. “Your cheek is all swollen.”

“I’ll keep it in mind.” For next time. The next time she does something this stupid, whenever her money runs out again. Yoohyeon moves to throw out the cotton pad before she starts crushing it again.

They fall into silence, neither of them finding anything to say as the reason for Siyeon’s presence in the house drops into the kitchen bin. She should leave now, they both know it, but she doesn’t offer and Yoohyeon doesn’t ask.

“So, it’s just you and your dad?”

It’s conversational, an attempt at recovering the previous mood.

It’s a poor attempt. Surely she must know that. Surely Siyeon must be able to look around her, at the house she’s in, at the business she frequented for the past couple of hours, and deduce that the absence of Yoohyeon’s mother in either location is not something she’d want discussed.

Especially not with a stranger, which Siyeon definitely still is, after a grand total of two conversations. A stranger she met at her father’s gambling place. No, definitely not something she wants to discuss.

“Yes,” she says, and nothing else, feeling the tension gather in her shoulders. Siyeon picks up on it at once.

“Right. Thanks for the, uh…” She lifts a finger to her cheek, self-evident. “I’ll see myself out.” She gets to her feet in a quick motion, then stops, reconsiders. Her fingers tap on the table, one by one, each snap of nail on plastic separate and distinct.

“I’m, uh, crashing here and there,” she offers, gazing just to the left of Yoohyeon like she’s fascinated by the fridge door. “Parents are way out of Seoul. I had a place, but I was sharing it with a friend and she’s, uh, gone now.” She says it weirdly, like she’s trying a little too hard to sound casual. Yoohyeon isn’t sure what she means. “So I’m just drifting until I find something I can afford on my own. Or another roommate I can stand, I guess.”

The rush of information fills the vacuum that built between them, surging into it with a force that tilts it out of place, too much all at once after they’d set the foundation for a relationship of evasion and easy quips. Honesty from Siyeon hits her like a rock, throwing her out of balance.

It’s an apology, she realizes. Heart-felt, in the only way Siyeon can manage. Offering up something in exchange for what she carelessly asked. There’s a hurried tint to her words that is entirely new, nerves under the bravado, getting it out of the way in a burst of words so she can’t dwell on it, like jumping off the deep end.

Yoohyeon wants to smile as her eyes rise to meet Siyeon’s, but as they sweep over her face, the sight of that ugly bruise reminds her of all that won’t go away no matter how many pretty words Siyeon has to offer. The smile dies away on her lips and she only nods.

Siyeon accepts it gracefully. She nods in response, shoves her hands in her pockets and walks off.

(…)

It’s a slow night, the hours passing by without incident. Much earlier than usual, half the patrons have already trickled out the door, tables empty save for a few dirty glasses and full ashtrays. Among the few who stay behind are Siyeon, at a game that has slowed down after a few too many rounds of drinks and is now being played mostly for distraction.

Yoohyeon approaches their table with a full tray and Siyeon reaches out, as is her habit, to pick up the first thing her fingers grasp and claim it as her own. But instead of the cheeky wink, she only offers up a brisk “Thanks.”

Yoohyeon bites back a frown, hovering a moment longer than needed. They haven’t talked since that night in the kitchen, which she didn’t think much of, but now she wonders if the girl is holding some bratty grudge over the incident. Yoohyeon refused to break the distance between them then, so now Siyeon reinforces it.

“You’re welcome,” she replies with stiff formality. Nobody else at the table registers the exchange, too deep into either a drunken stupor or some inebriated attempt at strategy.

Siyeon finally turns to face her, though, and there’s no petulance in her expression, no playful smirk. She just looks confused, miles away for a moment, before she seems to return to reality. She looks almost embarrassed by the slip, caught in the act of… of what? She was just looking off towards the distance right then, the corner of the room where Yoohyeon’s father has risen to his feet, accompanied by two of the usuals, and headed to the office.

“Your play, punk,” a gruff voice rises by Yoohyeon’s side. “In or out?”

Siyeon snaps back to life, peeks at her cards and throws a few more chips in the pile. The man with the gruff voice shifts in his chair and calls. Yoohyeon piles the empty glasses on her tray, not missing the way Siyeon’s eyes have drifted back to that corner.

She leaves at her usual time, a bit before closing. Instead of going straight up, she makes a detour through the front of the shop, for a bit of fresh air and maybe a few quiet moments in the darkness. It’s easier to pretend, in the tiny front room of the laundromat, that it really is just an innocent shop, that the inside will be just as cool and empty if she steps back through the door.

She stops halfway through the dark room. She can see, outside the shuttered windows, a small hunched figure leaning on the glass. A shock of platinum hair identifies her easily, and Yoohyeon balks at the sight. It’s been a long time since Siyeon’s left, at least half an hour, and she doesn’t usually linger beyond the one cigarette in the chill of the night. It feels intrusive to push on, when Siyeon so clearly is looking for a moment alone.

She begins to silently retrace her steps, when the girl turns and their eyes meet in the darkness. She holds the gaze for one second, then another, then raises her brows. Yoohyeon walks outside.

Siyeon is sitting on the dirty pavement, knees up, back to the windows, and once she is satisfied that Yoohyeon is coming, her head falls back so that she is once more staring up at the black sky. Her arms are crossed, resting against her knees, and no cigarette dangles from her fingers.

She looks small. Smaller than usual.

“I’ll wink next time,” she offers after a brief silence. Yoohyeon wants to say something biting about how little she minds one way or the other, but she wants to say it in the cool way that Siyeon does it, that balancing act where each dismissive word she sends her way somehow sounds like a compliment. She isn’t sure she can quite walk that rope.

Instead, she settles for another act, one that’s easier to pull off. “You know, a girl just wants to feel appreciated,” she replies with a hint of a whine. Siyeon picks up on the tone and plays off it at once.

“Hey now, we can’t both be flirting. We’ll cut the breaks on this thing between us.” She gestures across the distance, eyes glowing meaningfully. Yoohyeon smirks, and some part of her warms at the easy banter. Not a lot in her life feels easy.

“So I misunderstood? You haven’t been out here waiting for me to get off work?”

That one draws a snort from Siyeon, and the faintest sketch of a smile. Yoohyeon shoves her hands in the pockets of her uniform and fiddles with the loose strings at the bottom, unsure of what to say next.

“So is this when you usually get off?” The question is a little surprising, after Yoohyeon thought their bout of playful flirting had died down, until Siyeon adds on a, “You don’t close up?” Oh. Just making conversation, then.

Yoohyeon moves to lean next to the window, not too eager to sit on the pavement if she can avoid it. “Um, yeah. Dad just does the closing with whoever’s working that night.”

“Boss man’s kid privileges?”

“Oh yeah, you know how it is. Nothing spells privilege like reduced hours at the family’s underground gambling business.”

“Paid vacations too, I’ll bet.”

“And a pony for my birthday, every year.”

“Some kids really do have all the luck.”

Yoohyeon gives in and slowly slips down the wall to sit by Siyeon’s side. She isn’t looking at her anymore, head tilted back to the invisible stars. Yoohyeon takes the chance to study her profile, just for a second. She’s all soft curves and sharp lines, a contradiction, like the rest of her. Her eyes catch the glow from the street lights, hooded and searching. Her lips press tightly together and her throat works before she opens them, every movement distracting.

“That door, in the corner. Is that the office?” Her eyes slowly leave the stars and she rummages in her pocket for a smoke as Yoohyeon confirms it. “Ever been in there?”

Yoohyeon chews on her lip, confused. “Are you casing the place or something?” Siyeon huffs out her amusement in a little puff of smoke. She isn’t doing the playful act, or the flirty act. She’s back to mysterious, to offering up questions instead of answers. Yoohyeon realizes she’s just done the same. “I don’t think you’ll have much luck,” she adds. She isn’t sure why. Maybe just following in Siyeon’s push and pull, instead of resisting. The lack of tension might throw her off balance.

“Business not booming?”

“I haven’t actually seen the numbers,” she admits with a tilt of her head. Her father’s office is strictly out of bounds. Only for him and his associates. At this point, she almost prefers it that way. She isn’t sure she wants to know the truth of their finances. “But you’ve seen my father play. He’s good with the business part, but maybe he should have picked something else to venture into.”

“Some people just have addictive personalities,” Siyeon offers with a shrug, Yoohyeon’s strategy appearing to succeed in drawing out something other than a question. All at once, she regrets it. She wishes the words could be unsaid, could disappear along with the claws that they dig into her. Their inevitability scares her. “Those men, who went into his office today… Keep an eye on them, yeah? Stay away if you can.”

She draws away from the words, no longer wanting to probe. Knowing has power in more than one way. She’s learned that lesson too. “I try to stay away from all of them.”

“Not all of them.”

The cloud of smoke that Siyeon blows out then stands out sharply against the dark sky. She looks small again, harmless in the face of all the knowns and unknowns that Yoohyeon has learned to hide away in the shadows of herself. She wants to flirt again, to say words that don’t scrape against her throat coming out, to pretend.

“None of them come out here to smoke mournfully and look at the stars.”

“Are you saying my poetic streak brands me as harmless?”

It’s a joke. Because Siyeon knows it too, how small she is in a big, uncaring world. Yoohyeon was naive, maybe, to think she could set them apart, the things that are easy and the things that hurt. They all twist together, like barbed vines. 

“I’m saying you don’t fit in. Which is a good thing.”

Maybe the hurting is good. A sign that they can still get out. Maybe, like the bitter cold, it’s the going numb that spells out the end. 

Siyeon can tell what she means, Yoohyeon thinks. Well, she’s still sitting there gazing up at nothing. Still curled up and vacant. It wouldn't be hard to make the connection. She smiles and rubs at her face with her free hand, like she’s trying to keep down everything yearning to push to its surface.

“I’m fine, just… tired. Really tired.” She looks it, tired to the bone. Some part of her always does, even her daring seeming to feed off of some deep-rooted exhaustion, like she’s just too tired to care. Like… “What?” Siyeon asks, confused at the sudden attention, and Yoohyeon’s thought process spills into words.

“Sometimes you seem like you don’t even want to be here.”

Yoohyeon didn’t realize it, until she said it. What it is about Siyeon that makes her stand out like that. That makes her look so taut and so slack, all the time. It’s like it disgusts her, the ritual of it night after night, but she never stops coming.

Siyeon’s face changes when she says that. It’s a reaction that Yoohyeon can’t read, but it’s there. Has she struck a nerve? Will Siyeon bristle at it, or make some new quip on Yoohyeon’s need to look clever? Will she just smooth past it, like the first night, change the subject without explanation?

Whatever she decides to do, it gives a strange tint to her features, a rare moment of vulnerability. A soft wistfulness that shifts her, for a moment, into an entirely different person.

“Sometimes I don’t.”

She’s looking at the sky again. Yoohyeon wants to shift closer, to offer some of her warmth, but she doesn’t want to disturb the silence that falls between them. The quips would feel hollow now, in the shape that they’re in, and she doesn’t think she can stomach any more serious talk.

She lets her head fall back against the cold glass of the windows, following Siyeon’s gaze to the unbroken void. There are no stars. There are never any stars.

(…)

The kitchen table is littered with loose papers, mostly filled with scribblings that lead nowhere and the occasional essential conclusions that Yoohyeon will have to fish for once she’s finally gotten all her thoughts into order. Her father eyes the mess as he holds on to his bowl, and she finally gives in and sweeps a few sheets aside to give him room to set it down.

Her own food sits untouched on top of a pile of abandoned sketches as she desperately tries to make sense of her thoughts before she has to leave her work for the night. If she can manage that click that finally pushes things into place, it’ll be a lot easier to get the rest of the project done. But if she breaks her concentration without reaching that point, it will take twice as long to come back later and organize her quickly growing pile of scattered thoughts.

She doesn’t have twice as long, she thinks. She’s supposed to hand this in before the end of the week, or suffer the consequences in her final grade.

She ignores her father’s pointed coughs, for the first couple of times, hoping he’ll buy that she’s that deep in her own thoughts. She just needs to finish this line of reasoning.

“Yoohyeon,” he eventually calls, giving up on subtlety. She hums in response, showing she’s listening. Her food is getting cold, she knows, she’ll be late for work, she knows, she’ll make a mess of the place if she keeps leaving notes everywhere, she knows that too. “I wanted to talk to you, before we go downstairs.”

She stops her scribbling. His tone isn’t the expected, exasperation or the gentle goading he used to try with her when she was a kid and never quite dropped. It’s the tone he uses with things that have to do with the laundromat, the authority masking just a hint of embarrassment.

“What is it?” She gathers up the papers, trying her best to keep all the threads in her mind intact while she goes through the conversation.

“That rich punk.” Her heart picks up. She ignores it and keeps her motions steady. “She likes to get funny with the girls, always with those winks. If she tries anything with you, you beat her back, you hear?”

“ _Tries anything_?” she finds herself throwing back at him before she can stop herself. What exactly does he think is going on? She might be the only person in that room that _hasn’t_ tried something with Yoohyeon.

“She’s a bad influence. That young, could be anywhere, but she’s here spending her daddy’s money, wasting her life. If you let her, she’ll talk you right into wasting yours too.”

“So, just to see if I understand, I shouldn’t let her… talk to me?” He grunts in agreement. “Isn’t she a client? Shouldn’t I _indulge_ her?” She can’t help the acid that bites into the word, the one she knows her father will recognize.

“Not again with this conversation. I thought we were done with that.”

“No, I’m sorry, I’m just trying to wrap my head around the rules. So if a client stops me to let me know I’ve got a great ass, or that I’m too tense and he’d love to help me relax, then I should smile and nod and _indulge_ him. You know, because he’s a client, and I can’t just be rude to a client. But if a different client thanks me for serving her a drink, I should tell her to shove it. Is that about it?”

“You’re being childish about this-”

“I’m just confused. I mean, she spends her money at your establishment, doesn’t that give her the right to say whatever she wants to me, or about me? Isn’t that how it works?”

Somewhere down the line, she stopped gathering papers. Looking down now, she sees that the handful she’d been holding has been crumpled tightly in her fist. The absurd situation makes her blood boil, her father’s double standards harder to stand than any of the degrading comments. Siyeon is the bad influence, somehow. The only one who treats her like an actual person.

“Clearly this school business has got you stressed out,” her father cuts the discussion short, gesturing towards her notes. She almost had him flustered for a moment, but now he’s back to his assertive self. “Take the night off, finish your work. I expect you in a better mood tomorrow. I don’t pay for your university just to have you act out over it.”

She bites her tongue so hard it almost bleeds, but she manages not to spit out a retort as he gets to his feet and heads out of the apartment. As much as his words dig at her, it’s much better to have a night off than to defend her dignity and end up back downstairs. She knows to quit when she’s ahead.

She picks up her pencil and searches for where she left off. For a couple of seconds, her hand hovers over the paper, then she drops it with a sigh and shoves the page away. She’s lost track of her thoughts completely.

She turns her attention to her cold food instead, back to gathering up the mess of notes and putting it back into order as she stuffs her mouth as fast as she can. Once she’s done, she picks up the neat stack and takes it to her room. It’s too small to fit any sort of desk, but she’s used to working on her bed, her back against the wall and the window to her right.

Her conclusions, once so tantalizingly close, now hang far out of her reach again. She tries to focus, to get back to the mind space, to remember, but she’s still too wound up to settle into it. Her frustration seeps through to every part of her life and makes the notes in front of her a useless jumble of letters and signs that she suddenly wants to rip to shreds just for something to do that won’t make her feel so helpless.

She presses back, feels the coolness of the wall against her spine, tries so hard not to think of what’s at stake and fails miserably.

She needs to hand this in by Friday. She might be able to negotiate an extension, but even that will cost her some points. And if her grade drops, she’ll risk her scholarship, and she can’t lose it, she absolutely can’t lose it. Her father might have been able to cover the full cost of tuition and supplies at some point, but Yoohyeon has no doubt of what he’d do now if she told him it was all on him.

It’s just a partial scholarship. It’s all she could manage. If she could have just tried a little harder, studied longer hours, sacrificed what she needed to sacrifice to get a full scholarship, she could be out of here by now. She could be in student housing, or some crappy shared apartment, she wouldn’t need him anymore. But she couldn’t do it. Not this one tiny thing, this one tiny effort to get it, she didn’t try hard enough, she wasn’t smart enough, and now it’s just going to happen again. She’ll lose what little she has, lose the money, and then what?

Does she drop out? Does she get a second job? Would her father even let her, or would he just pull the plug on it, tell her to get serious? And if she ends up working for him, or doing whatever he thinks is a better way to spend her time than school, then what? She stays here? And when the business needs money, the business that keeps a roof over their heads, and he goes to her for it, what can she say?

And then it’ll happen more and more often, because she knows, it always gets worse. That’s how it goes, how losing money happens. First it’s a drop, then a trickle, then a flood, then everything that goes in falls right out. And she’ll be trapped by it too, she’ll be in the flood, getting swept away until it’s all she can do to keep her head above water.

She reaches for the window, opens it wide to let the cold night air surround her. Face out in the breeze, she evens out her breaths, taking in deep lungfuls of air. She can’t keep thinking about this. She needs a break. She slips on her coat and shoes and walks outside.

The front of the laundromat is deceptively quiet, its dark interior throwing out a mute appeal that Yoohyeon resists in favour of the cooler outside. It’s always been a weak distraction, her life seeping in at the corners with the hush of conversation and the whiffs of tobacco smoke. For tonight, she’d rather stay out here, where the cold is just enough to keep her mind on it.

She doesn’t know how long she stays like that, back against the rough bricks of the wall, gaze idly following the line of lights down the street. She counts them down until each pinprick becomes too small to tell apart from the next, infinitesimal becoming infinity. It’s only as familiar platinum peeks around the corner that she realizes she’s right next to Siyeon’s bike, that she’s been waiting for her.

The girl stops in her tracks when she sees her, eyes narrowing warily. “I iced it,” she says, voice defensive as she resumes her approach. “And how did you know, anyway? I haven’t seen you all night.”

That’s when Yoohyeon notices it, the dark bruise blossoming along Siyeon’s jaw. She reaches out to cup it, tilt it to the side to inspect it under the light. Siyeon is tense under her grip, like she still expects a scolding, or maybe some harsh prodding.

That’s what they usually do, isn’t it? Yoohyeon cares, and Siyeon doesn’t. Yoohyeon fights to stay afloat and Siyeon lets the waves take her.

Is it really so bad? Isn’t a little pain, a tender patch of skin, a small price to pay for the freedom to make all the mistakes without regret? For the ability to let tomorrow stay tomorrow, for only ever having to live in the today. Yoohyeon wants a taste of it, too. Of not caring.

“Take me for a ride?”

Siyeon watches her, face still tilted up to hers by Yoohyeon’s grip. Yoohyeon lets her search her eyes for answers, doesn’t try to hide whatever it is the girl may find in them. For tonight, she doesn’t care.

Then Siyeon’s freeing herself with a swift sideways nod, reaching across Yoohyeon and returning with helmet in hand. Yoohyeon puts it on, slips behind Siyeon on the bike, wraps her arms around her waist. She feels the warmth from the girl’s skin, pressed against her front and seeping into her fingers, focuses on it as the engine roars to life.

Siyeon takes her across quiet streets, never too fast, just enough that the wind roars past her head in a welcome distraction. They twist and turn through the cramped passages, until they suddenly give way to open spaces, and beyond them, to the high-speed lanes that follow the river. There, Siyeon speeds up, until the asphalt flies by underfoot, strips of black and white blurring into grey.

It’s late enough that the traffic has trickled down to nothing, just the occasional car speeding by them. Yoohyeon’s neck cranes to the side as she watches the show of lights across the water, the way they reflect on the waves so dark they’re almost pitch black.

She lets her mind go blank, lets the waves remind her that the world is so big, and life is so long, and every single day we wax and we wane, and we won’t go under until we stop swimming.

When the streets start to get thinner and winding again, Yoohyeon acknowledges their growing familiarity with a pang of regret, a longing for the moment to be prolonged just a while longer. She feels better, but it’s so much easier to feel better away from it all. Back home, the resignation slips in, like a well-worn cloak around her shoulders. Always there.

She steps down from the bike and returns Siyeon’s helmet, watches her bite away a smile at the state of her hair. She wants her to fix it for her, to give her another moment of oblivion, something else to think about. The knot in her chest has loosened, but it’s still there, waiting. Now she just wants to cry it out.

She fixes it herself, pats it down half-heartedly. Siyeon is still standing by her bike, helmet in hand. She still isn’t asking, none of the obvious questions. Yoohyeon thinks that if she asked something stupid like “are you okay?” she might actually punch her in the arm or something.

“Do you ever think about forever?” She can guess the answer to that one, and she doesn’t really want it, so she goes on before Siyeon can recover from the surprise. “There’s just something about it. Forever. I’ve spent my whole life just putting one foot in front of the other, dealing with the next mess in the horizon. Telling myself, one more day, one more month, one more year. And when anything happens, when another year is added on the pile, that’s just another year. I just have to make it through it, right? And then it’ll be fine.

“And I try not to think about it. Forever. Because 5 years, 10 years, 20 years, that’s still… That’s still just time. It’s a sacrifice I make for the later. After it’s bad, it’ll be good. So it’s okay.” She bites down on her lip, hard, because she can feel the tears at the back of her eyes, and she doesn’t want to cry here, in front of Siyeon. She doesn’t want to fail so miserably at not caring. But then why is she saying it? The thing that she’s kept at the back of her mind for so long.

“But now it keeps coming to me, forever, it’s always there. Because it’s not- you can’t know. There’s no moment where you know, that the years that you’re getting through before you get to actually live, that they’re all of it. Forever sneaks up on you. And what if that’s it? What if it’s already here? What if I’m trying so hard just to hang on, and I’ll just be hanging on forever? Just okay enough to keep going. Never actually… Never actually good. What if I just get the compromise, for the rest of my life? What if I’m already stuck? And- God, what if one day I wake up and I know?”

She feels the wall against her back and realizes she’s been stumbling backwards. Her breathing comes in shallow intakes and her hands shake as she raises them to her face, to try to cover it, to block out the world. She didn’t even realize she had all this inside of her, and now that it’s out in the open, she feels weirdly empty, just a gaping pit stretching endlessly into herself.

“Hey, hey!” Siyeon calls out, almost stern. Her hands wrap around Yoohyeon’s wrists, pull them away from her face with a strangely gentle touch. “What the hell are you talking about? You’re not stuck anywhere. Aren’t you at school? That’s what, two more years of your life? Then you’ll graduate and get a job and you can do whatever, go wherever.”

She tenses up at the mention of school, at the thought of her project, her scholarship, of failing or dropping out, working for her father, and then the debts-

“And if you’re too dumb for school or, you know, too cool, like some of us,” Siyeon carries on, and it’s lame enough that it cuts her short, and she finds herself letting out a surprised laugh, “then whatever, you can drop out and get a job anyway. You could leave now, if you wanted. I mean, it makes sense to try to finish school first, obviously. But you could. You’re not stuck, Yoohyeon, I know it feels like it sometimes, but you’re not. I promise.”

She lets her wrists drop. She didn’t even realize she was still resisting Siyeon’s gentle tug. “You promise,” she repeats, her voice even. Siyeon nods and it’s a jerky, hesitant motion.

The hollow inside of Yoohyeon grows, but it grows sideways, like an itch, like a wanting. Siyeon’s words ring in her ears, a world of firsts. The first time she’s told anyone about any of this. The first time someone has cared. Understood. Tried to help. Promised.

Her wrists still in Siyeon’s grip, she pulls back, just enough, so that Siyeon stumbles forward, and then she tilts down her head and catches her lips in a kiss that, for once, shuts everything else out. The body against her goes stiff, then yielding, and then Siyeon is kissing her back, her touch still so gentle.

It feels like more than getting by. More than a compromise. It feels like something just for herself, just for the now. She pulls her hands free, to let them rest on Siyeon’s waist. A second passes, then another, and then she feels Siyeon’s cool fingers cup her jaw, pull her deeper into the kiss. She lets herself be lost in the moment.

(…)

She doesn’t think about the kiss. For all that it stays at the back of her mind, never quite forgotten, she’s just too busy. She stays up all night to finish her project, only catching a few hours of sleep at the crack of dawn, and the rest of the day passes by her in a haze of exhaustion.

A full twenty-four hours after the event, all that fills her mind is a deep longing for sleep, a pull that draws her to darkness as soon as her head hits the pillow.

By the next morning, when her mind is finally a little clearer, the kiss has become just a kiss. The time to be giddy has passed, taken up by her responsibilities, and now she’s just a girl who kissed someone she shouldn’t, and it was nice, but it’s also done.

She doesn’t regret it, not particularly. Siyeon is a good kisser, and it felt good to be the centre of her attention for those fleeting moments. But she won’t delude herself into building some fairy tale romance out of one kiss, something that might never happen again. Neither of them is the fairy-tale type, and their lives are still what they are, and her father wants her away from Siyeon, and Siyeon is wasting her life in -

Yoohyeon doesn’t want to think about it. It’s nothing. It doesn’t matter anyway.

Siyeon is back that night, as usual. She does the usual act with the winking and the careless bets, always looking just a little too drunk for what Yoohyeon has seen her slip from the trays around her, like she thinks being slightly plastered is an essential part of her charm.

At first Yoohyeon doesn’t realize, too busy with work and making a conscious effort to avoid focusing on Siyeon, on alert from her father’s warning. But eventually she begins to catch it out of the corner of her eye, until she’s sure that Siyeon has been sneaking glances at her. Not giddy, longing glances, Yoohyeon would expect that she’d at least know not to let those show. Just the furtive darting of eyes her way, as if making sure of where she is at all times, like prey keeping track of the dangers in the environment.

Siyeon is going to be weird about it. Already is, Yoohyeon supposes. It would be fine, if she kept it to herself, but her glances won’t stop, and Yoohyeon worries at every turn that her father will catch on and grow suspicious. How tragic, to get in trouble because the bad girl she kissed was too worried that she was going to sneak up on her and do it again.

She goes out to meet Siyeon once she leaves for the night, trying her best to avoid any attention on her way. Outside, the girl is leaning against the shutters with a cigarette in hand. Their eyes meet and the trapped look is gone, once more all empty bravado. Yoohyeon knows she should know better, but she can’t help but miss the earnest Siyeon, the one who clings to her to make sure her words of encouragement reach her. This one, she suspects, is going to say something stupid instead.

“You’re not going to want to hold hands or something now, right?”

It’s a little embarrassing, honestly, that the words still manage to hurt her. She knows what Siyeon is doing, or trying to do, and yet it stops her in her tracks. It makes something strange light up inside of her, a fire that she tries so hard to starve, but that always simmers somewhere deep and unreachable.

“My dad doesn’t want me around you,” she replies, cool and careless, an edge to her voice that makes it sharp and unpleasant and so unlike herself.

“Oh.” Siyeon takes another drag, unstable for a moment as Yoohyeon pulls instead of pushing. “Is that what you came to say, then? Tearful goodbyes?”

“Not really. It was before the bike ride, so...” She tilts a shoulder in a half-shrug. Her lips press into a thin line, push against the hardness that seems to be taking over her body. It feels good, like nothing can get in.

“Before-” Siyeon chokes on the word and its implications, and a little cloud of smoke escapes her nostrils. Yoohyeon watches her impassively, the way she pushes off the wall to face her, the way her eyebrows furrow against the shift in mood. “Gee, thanks for the heads up.”

“What, are you scared of my dad?” Sarcasm leaves her like molasses, sticks to her raised brows, to her caustic smile. “Is that why we can’t _hold hands_?” she drags out, and it’s so addictive, to be in control as Siyeon scrambles for a response. To not feel like the ridiculous one.

“Okay, okay, I get it,” Siyeon eventually gives in, although she sounds more sulky than apologetic.

“See, I can be an asshole too.” Yoohyeon knows her mask of disinterest is slipping quickly, as the anger simmering inside pushes its way to the surface, eager to be felt for a moment before it’s pushed back to the side lines. “It’s not that hard, it’s actually really easy.”

“I said I get it.” But she doesn’t, because if she did, she wouldn’t still be acting like the tough girl being clung to by some clueless ditz in need of approbation. She’d be more like the last time, actually honest, actually real.

“You always put up that stupid act. Like I’m a rich spoiled girl you picked up at some seedy bar. Like I have no idea what’s going on!” Yoohyeon lets her voice get louder, even though she feels like an idiot for even caring, but she can’t help it. What right does Siyeon think she has, to act like Yoohyeon doesn’t know, like she isn’t there every night? Like this isn’t her whole life too, no matter how badly she wishes it wasn’t?

“I’m sorry, okay!” Siyeon spits back, and her voice is louder too, cracking a little with the sudden volume. “I just – I don’t want you to like me.”

“Why? Because you don’t?”

Yoohyeon’s mouth falls shut with a snap as she realizes what she’s said. At that, the anger that has gathered over her all seems to melt, disappear into the night air, and it strikes her, how inebriating it is. To be so consumed with it that you don’t stop at anything. It made her feel powerful for an instant, untouchable, and then she was just standing there, in front of Siyeon, knowing that the girl wouldn’t deny the accusation. Knowing that the very truth of it was why she’d said it, and why she shouldn’t have.

“Because it’ll make it harder,” Siyeon says simply, her voice back to its normal volume. She won’t address it, and neither should Yoohyeon, and that’s the only reason she bites back an apology. “Later.”

“When?”

“When you hate me.”

She knows what Siyeon means, how could she not? It’s what their whole lives are about. Sometimes she forgets, somehow, despite how deeply she’s buried in this world. She forgets that it’s all connected, and it all pulls her further in, and Siyeon is as much a light in the darkness as she is another link in the chain.

It would be easier if she hated Siyeon, as much as she hates every other patron of the laundromat. If the girl really was what she keeps trying to be, messy and coarse and harsh. But she isn’t. She keeps giving Yoohyeon these glimpses of something else, keeps taking off the mask whenever Yoohyeon glances her way. And it’s flattering, but it’s also dangerous, and Yoohyeon knows that as well as Siyeon.

She licks her lips absently, still trying to make sense of the thoughts in her head, to figure out what it is she wants to do. Siyeon eyes the motion, lingering for a moment on her mouth, and Yoohyeon’s thoughts are scattered at once.

She does know what she wants. Not in the way that she should, but in the right now.

“Well, you’re bad at making me not like you,” she breathes out, settling for honesty in the absence of anything else to cling to.

“I know,” Siyeon replies easily. It’s stupidly disarming.

“Really bad.” That one draws a smile from the girl’s lips, almost sheepish. 

“I know.”

“I mean, you flirt a lot. And you make stupid jokes. And you _listen_ to me.”

“Girls do love it when you listen,” Siyeon agrees with a nod, and it’s such a cheesy thing to say that Yoohyeon wants to smack her.

“So you can’t just do that,” she insists, and she knows that stepping closer to Siyeon as she says it probably sends a mixed message, but she barely registers the movement, “and then act like I’m the one who’s pushing.”

“I know.”

Siyeon looks chastened now, finally apologetic. She looks away, then down as she crushes the remnants of her cigarette under her boot. She’s made her choice, it seems, and Yoohyeon still isn’t sure that it’s what she wants as well. And if Siyeon is doing it for her, for her own good, because she thinks she’ll take Yoohyeon down the wrong path in life…

“Look, Siyeon. I’m getting out of this world, one way or another. And when I do, I’m leaving all of it behind, no matter what might be here for me.” It’s not a promising start. It’s probably a terrible start. It’s definitely not a flattering way to phrase it.

“Even your dad?”

Her dad? What? Siyeon looks suddenly earnest and Yoohyeon can only feel confusion at the question. “This isn’t about him, this is-“

“You’d abandon your family like that?” Siyeon cuts in, her voice intense. Yoohyeon blinks at her, unable to tell whether she’s joking or serious, frustrated at the abrupt change of topic.

“Yes, okay?” she lets out in a rush. She would. She’d block his number, get a new address, cut him out completely if she could. “He’ll run my life to the ground if I don’t,” she says with a shudder. There’s anger mingled in with the desperation, a hatred she hates in herself, but one that she can’t deny.

Siyeon picks up on it, still so close to Yoohyeon, and suddenly no longer closed-off, her features tight with determination as she stares Yoohyeon down.

“I won’t let him,” she says firmly, like she could do anything. In that moment, it really feels like she could. She steps closer, breaks the distance between them while Yoohyeon remains perfectly still.

“You’re doing it again,” she gasps, lost, trying to find her footing.

“I know.” Siyeon comes even closer, hands on Yoohyeon’s waist, their grip steady and disorientating.

“Siyeon, we haven’t even talked about- You’re the one who-“

“Hey, I get it, our days are numbered.” She’s close, so close, Yoohyeon can smell a hint of perfume under the smell of tobacco. “That’s okay. That’s good. I get it.” She’s whispering now, and the whisper travels across the inches between them to brush against Yoohyeon’s lips, and she doesn’t really mind anymore, whatever Siyeon will decide to take away from this. Once more, Yoohyeon is overwhelmed by the now.

This time, Siyeon is the one who leans in for a kiss. Yoohyeon melts, pressed between her and the dusty shutters, hands on her waist keeping her tightly grounded. And it should feel bittersweet, but all she feels is warm, warm, warm.

(…)

It’s a quiet night. Yoohyeon’s mind is a million miles away, running over homework and projects due and exams once more looming in the horizon. She works on auto-pilot, replacing drinks with practiced gestures and swooping between tables too quickly to catch any patron’s eye.

Siyeon is there too, but Yoohyeon takes special care not to catch her eye either, always mindful of her father. He’s never tried to restrict her freedom, never forbidden her from spending time with people from school or even going to their houses for group projects, although she always took the initiative herself to keep her distance from anyone who tried to get too close. It’s not safe to draw too much attention when you have secrets.

Still, she isn’t sure how he’d react to her growing closer to someone who spends their nights at the laundromat. As much as he’s pushed her into this world, he still wants to believe that he’s keeping her safe from the worst of it. And really, could Yoohyeon blame him for wanting them apart if he did find out?

Raised voices pierce through her thoughts, bringing her back to the present, just in time to realize that it’s Siyeon’s voice suddenly filling the room, slightly raspy with tension. The words fly by Yoohyeon, and only moments later can she put their meaning together. But by then the man in front of Siyeon is already pushing back his chair, movements menacingly slow.

“I didn’t cheat,” he says impassively. His eyes glint down at Siyeon from behind curtains of greasy hair that flows all the way down to his tattooed neck.

“Like hell you didn’t,” Siyeon spits back, reaching across the table for- what? His cards? The money he’s already tugged his way? Either way, she gets stopped halfway there by a heavy hand on her shoulder, anchoring her in place.

“Watch it, punk.”

Yoohyeon watches Siyeon snatch the hand away, and she swears the girl is almost snarling as she jumps to her feet. “You watch it! I want my money back.”

“You’re not getting shit. Go and ask daddy for more, if you’re so desperate.”

A few others have approached the table, but nobody is interfering, and it’s clear why. If anybody is getting thrown out, it’ll be Siyeon, and the man she’s currently staring down is more than capable of handling that on his own. Yoohyeon’s grip on her empty tray tightens, and she pretends to be doing anything other than following the confrontation with her full attention. It’s what she would have done if it were anyone else.

“You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.” Siyeon’s voice is dripping venom now, nothing like the past, when she’d laugh off jokes about her rich family, which Yoohyeon is well aware is a lie she’s simply allowed to go on for all this time. Suddenly, it seems that the reminder is no longer welcome, that the playfulness has been chased away by something more urgent.

Yoohyeon has been trying hard to look elsewhere, but she can’t help but glance back as she hears murmurs grow, a chair scrape against the floor. She sees the man, stumbling to recover his balance, and Siyeon, standing far too close to him with fingers wrapped around the collar of his jacket.

Yoohyeon pictures what happens next perfectly in her mind, seconds before it takes place. She sees the man move to brush off angry fingers, step forward into Siyeon’s space, not pause once to consider how small she is, because she always makes herself look so big and unbreakable, and it’s so believable until she’s flying backwards under a single rough push. Yoohyeon bites into her lip, feels the metallic tang of blood against her tongue as Siyeon goes down, hits her head on the chair, goes limp on the ground for a second before she’s curling up against the pain.

He seems taken aback for a moment at the way she goes down so easily, steps back with his arms up as if relinquishing responsibility. In a flash, Yoohyeon’s father takes over, stepping into the fray with a booming laugh that clears the situation of all tension.

“Better pick on someone your own size next time,” he points out, drawing smiles from the observers, who slowly disperse. “Now get out of here, and don’t come back until you’ve learned some manners.” He concludes by prodding Siyeon’s back with his foot, watching patiently as she uncurls and gets to her feet, stumbling her way out of the laundromat without further protest.

Yoohyeon picks up some random glasses. She isn’t even sure they’re empty. It doesn’t really matter, she’s just making time, waiting until her father approaches her, as he always does, begins the same old awkward conversation, dismisses her with some casual mention of all the work she probably has to get back to.

It’s one of those moments when his conscience returns. Seeing someone on the ground, often in much worse shape than Siyeon was left in, sometimes bleeding on the carefully scrubbed floor, the scrubbed floor that Yoohyeon studies the next morning, because it seems so incongruous that something like that could just vanish, when it always seems to her that the blood seeps down, fills the soul of the place, lingers.

His conscience returns, then, and he remembers that his daughter is meant for better things. That he isn’t just raising her to join him in the hole he’s dug for himself. He remembers and he wants her away, so he can pretend that he’s actually trying, that she hasn’t seen all she’s seen.

She never refuses him. She never tells him that it doesn’t work, either. That she can remember every single time blows have been exchanged, every injury, the sound of fists against flesh, the whistle of blades flying through the air. She doesn’t refuse this time either, and she flies up the stairs two at a time.

She leaves the house with a pack of ice, still in her uniform. It’s a relief when she sees Siyeon’s bike, parked precariously on the pavement, proof that she hasn’t left. She grips the ice pack a little harder, hands already growing numb, and turns the corner.

“I thought you’d be long gone by now.”

Siyeon is sitting on the ground, her back to the laundromat shutters, the side of her head cradled in her hand. One of her legs is stretched out, the other tucked in and supporting her elbow. She looks up at Yoohyeon’s voice, her features twisted into a childish pout that seems so incongruous with what has just happened.

“Well…” she replies dryly, tone self-explanatory. She seems to cradle her head a little closer, then change her mind at the pressure from her own hand.

Yoohyeon quickly kneels by her side and holds out the ice. “Are you dizzy? Double vision? You could have a concussion.”

“No, just hurts,” Siyeon says testily. She grabs the ice with a single sharp motion, then flinches at the resulting jolt of pain. She really is acting like a child. “What are you, studying to be a doctor then?”

“It’s called common sense. Something you seem to be lacking.” Yoohyeon isn’t really mad, not as much as she is concerned for the girl currently pressing the ice pack as gently as she can against her temple, frowning at every inch of motion. She’d be angrier if she could genuinely tell herself that she hadn’t seen this coming.

“That guy was cheating.”

“So? He’s twice your size, what else did you think would happen?”

She sits back more comfortably, side pressed against Siyeon’s despite the small grumble of protest at the movement. It’s a little too cold out, in just her uniform, but she doesn’t mind the goosebumps rising along her arms. It feels grounding, in a way. A normal reaction, her body reminding her that she still works like everybody else.

“Whatever. I’m fine.”

She wants to ask if the ice is helping, but she doesn’t, because Siyeon is being a little bit of an ass, and so she shouldn’t give in, even though she knows why she’s being an ass and she really doesn’t care and she wants to feel nice instead of bad.

“Yeah, who cares about a tiny concussion?”

She can see Siyeon turn slightly to face her, from the corner of her eye. She turns a bit too, and catches the disgruntled look on her face. She wants to kiss her then, but she doesn’t.

She realizes she’s drawing all these lines for herself, but not the one that would actually change anything. She weighs out her words and her looks and her touches, but she won’t walk away either. And Siyeon knows that, and so she looks at her like that, like she always does. Like she wants Yoohyeon to not like her, but can’t bring herself to make it so.

“I didn’t even pass out,” she snaps, then turns her attention away from Yoohyeon and back to the empty storefronts across the street. “It’s probably not a concussion.”

“Whatever it is, it’s going to bruise like crazy.” She lets her hand drop to the sliver of pavement between them, where Siyeon’s is splayed like an anchor against the discomfort. Her fingers slip easily in between Siyeon’s, rest there. “You idiot.”

“He cheated,” Siyeon grumbles in a quieter voice. She doesn’t pull away.

“Since when do you care so much?” Siyeon’s hand turns over in hers, clings back. She feels thumb and forefinger come together, pinch at the skin on her knuckle, release it then begin again. Siyeon seems to be doing it thoughtlessly, a soothing repetition. “You’ve never played to win unless you were short on money.”

Silence. Pinch and release, pinch and release. Yoohyeon relaxes into the motion too, into Siyeon’s warmth.

“You’re a little too observant.” It’s exactly what she expected.

“And you’re a little too belligerent,” she shoots back without hesitation.

“Is that wedding bells I hear,” Siyeon asks in a deadpan, more remark than question. Yoohyeon bites back a smile.

“You know, head injuries can cause tinnitus.” She can see the smirk on Siyeon’s lips without turning.

Siyeon slowly pulls the ice pack away from her face and Yoohyeon immediately turns to face her, a delicate finger on her chin to draw it her way. She studies the skin, darkening despite the ice, and frowns at the sight. She wants to prod it but resists the stupid impulse, lets her fingers spread more fully against the line of Siyeon’s jaw instead.

She leans in and presses her lips to the corner of her mouth, a touch so light it barely registers. Siyeon’s hand stills against hers, then picks up again, pinching in a looser rhythm, and Yoohyeon wants so badly to feel nice, without the baggage, without the bruises and ice packs and the uniform, without the smell of cheap liquor and tobacco still clinging to her, to just be kissing a girl she likes. And she also wants to kiss Siyeon, just as she is, and these are two wishes that can’t coexist forever.

But she tries not to think about forever.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Siyeon asks, breath against Yoohyeon’s lips, and she knows she doesn’t mean the kiss.

“I don’t know,” she says simply, honestly, “but I’m doing it.”

(…)

“What do you do during the day?”

A snort. “I work, obviously. What else would I do?”

“I don’t know, I’ve only ever seen you at night. I kind of picture you as some newly-turned vampire who just roams the streets all night and then sleeps out the day.”

“In a coffin?”

“Hmm. The coffin is optional.”

Siyeon laughs, a silent vibration that spreads to Yoohyeon through the press of their bodies, side by side on the narrow bed. They’re looking up, at the slightly stained ceiling, and pretending that the world is encased within those four walls.

“I wouldn’t be a vampire, anyway. If anything, I’d be a werewolf.”

“Oh yeah? Why?”

“Wolves are cool.”

She laughs, then feels eyes turn to her accusingly. Siyeon’s lips quirk, probably unbeknownst to her, into the slightest pout.

“Why are they cool?” she asks, trying for soothing. She wants to know, really. It’s rare that she gets anything out of the girl, any glimpse into her true self. And maybe she should see it for the blessing that it is, the line making sure she never falls too deep, but sometimes she can’t resist.

“I don’t know, they’ve got cool eyes and sharp teeth. They’re just really big and scary in a cool way.” It’s half the truth, the outside of it, so Yoohyeon waits in silence. Their hands are woven together, and she lets her thumb run over Siyeon’s palm as the time passes. “They’re smart, too. They can communicate, give each other signs and stuff. And they feel stuff. They get attached. When a member of the pack dies, they get upset. That’s a different kind of smart, I guess.”

“Yeah, that _is_ pretty cool,” Yoohyeon has to agree. That seems to satisfy Siyeon, although she still looks a little embarrassed in the aftermath. It’s cute.

“Are you sure it’s okay for me to be here?” Siyeon eventually asks, for probably the fifth time that night.

“It’s either here or the kitchen, and at least here you can hide under the bed if my dad shows up. Unless you’d like to try squeezing inside the fridge or something.”

It’s an infrequent opportunity that Yoohyeon seized at once. A break from work, after a particularly difficult few nights at the laundromat left some lingering guilt in her father, and for once not coinciding with exams or projects due. Just a night to herself, to spend in any way she wants.

She came downstairs to meet Siyeon once she saw her bike coming down the street, making sure to catch her before she went inside. The girl nodded at her suggestion, promised she wouldn’t be long, then headed into the shop.

To be honest, Yoohyeon didn’t expect to see her at all after that. Nobody who says they won’t be long in a place like that actually follows through. They say it, maybe even mean it, then the hours fly by them in high stakes and risky plays, and they leave in a daze of alcohol and smoke and lighter pockets, far too late to do anything but drag themselves home.

But there was a knock on her door not much more than thirty minutes later. Siyeon stood there, cheap tobacco already clinging to her hair, but otherwise unchanged.

Yoohyeon tells herself to let the pleasant surprise be just a pleasant surprise. To not read into it, find hope or expectations, predict a pattern. Siyeon already has a pattern, and it isn’t this. It’s the other side of things. It’s bruises and one too many drinks and desperate gambles that have stopped paying off.

She’s been kicked out more than once, now. Hurt a few times as well, bounced easily to the ground or against the nearest table by taller, bulkier players. Sometimes she almost stops resembling a person, becomes fuelled only by that drive that Yoohyeon could never understand, that fire that to her has always felt like nothing but ash.

It feels like the tight-rope act is growing harder and harder, and Siyeon is swaying dangerously over the edge of safety, so close to plummeting to the ground far below.

But tonight, she’s here, and she thinks wolves are cool, and the world is encased within these four walls.

“Why did you dye your hair?” Yoohyeon asks, setting time back into motion, willing her thoughts away.

“Wanted to look tough.” Siyeon turns her head to face her, a smile on her lips. “My friend always told me I had a baby face, and I guess I got tired of it.”

“Your friend? Was that your roommate? The one who…” Siyeon nods. Yoohyeon swallows drily, not sure about her next question. “What happened to her?”

Siyeon’s face closes off, unreadable for a moment. All Yoohyeon knows for sure is there’s sadness swirling deep in her eyes, mixed with a thousand different things. “I… I can’t really tell you that right now. But some other time, okay? I promise.”

“Sure,” she says quickly, before life can rush into the void that silence brings. “Some other time.”

Siyeon nods, doesn’t let the silence settle either. “What about you? Did you ever think of dying your hair?”

“I don’t know. It attracts a lot of attention.”

“Attention isn’t always bad.”

“Yeah, well, only one of us thinks that way, so I guess it’s good that it’s the one with platinum blonde hair.” That one drags a laugh out of Siyeon, a slow and quiet thing, less surprise and more contentment.

“There are other colours, more neutral stuff. Brown. Lighter brown. Dark blonde?” Siyeon lists off between pauses, as if struggling to come up with anything. Yoohyeon bumps her shoulder against her, just because.

“Maybe brown, if it’s not too unprofessional. It depends on where I’ll end up working, I guess.”

“Oh. Right. Nothing too flashy, then.”

Yoohyeon hums her agreement. This time, silence does fall, and she knows why, and regrets her words. It’s the future, knocking at their door once again, reminding them of their dwindling time together.

It makes it worse, somehow, that nothing is really standing between them. Only themselves. Only the tug at the centre of each of them, pulling in opposite directions. The tug that will send them crashing into heartbreak, no matter which way they choose to go.

The bedroom suddenly feels too small, the bed too narrow, Siyeon’s body too warm against her. Yoohyeon wishes she was outside, taking in the cold night air, outside a million miles away. Somewhere surrounded by vast empty fields, with grass under her feet and the sky above. Somewhere with stars that she could look at and draw patterns into and compare herself to. She wishes she had something so big that she could feel small again, meaningless for a moment.

She has Siyeon. She has gentle fingers pinching at the back of her hand, patient eyes studying. She has moments, time that even now is running out.

She doesn’t want to be upset. She doesn’t want to waste her precious time with sadness over the inevitable. She doesn’t want to make mistakes and risk her future. She doesn’t want to go too far and give up too much of herself and make it so much harder when it’s over. She doesn’t want to fall in love.

She can tell that she’s failing.

So she draws another line, another pointless line that lets her feel like she’s still in control, and she avoids Siyeon’s gaze. She gazes up at the ceiling, traces every single familiar stain, and pretends that she doesn’t want to let herself fall into the girl next to her, to reach for every inch of her warmth and throw it at the cold growing deep inside.

“What will you do when you can’t afford it anymore?” she asks in a whisper. It’s dumb, leaning into the sadness, but sometimes the pain is more bearable when you press at the wound, when you can pretend that it’ll all go away when you release.

Siyeon shrugs. She looks up at the ceiling too. When she speaks, her voice is a little rough, with something like regret, or something like despair. “I never could.”

(…)

Yoohyeon has been expecting the end for so long, so many nights of watching Siyeon slip further away, so many spilled drinks and ice packs, that it’s almost underwhelming when it comes.

A quiet night, with the place half-empty, the tables occupied by only a few of the regulars. Her father, deep into a game with the hulking, tattooed men that have been hanging close to him for months now. Siyeon, of course, in the thick of it, slamming down bills on the table with an intensity that makes her past carelessness almost absurd to recall.

Her jacket is loose on her frame, stubbornly sliding down her right shoulder with each jerky motion, revealing a pattern of dark bruises that disappears down her arm.

It’s all normal, the strange new reality that has taken over Yoohyeon’s life. When Siyeon’s glass crashes onto the table, when her voice raises unintelligibly, when she slaps the deck of cards to the floor, watching it spread in endless waves. Yoohyeon just carries on, the only waitress in service for the night, steps around the slippery cards as she swaps out drinks.

She averts her eyes at the scraping of chairs, at angry grunts. She’d rather not see it, she’s learned the hard way. With practiced ease, she tunes out the words being exchanged, even as they grow louder.

But then, something changes. She isn’t sure how she realizes it, but she eventually does. It feels different, a different sort of desperate, and that’s when she knows. It’s the end.

It doesn’t feel quite real, doesn’t feel quite possible. But it’s the end. She can tell from the way Siyeon is dragged, not outside, but to her father, who faces her with his best attempt at patronizing.

“You’re in a bit of a mess, aren’t you, punk?”

“Oh, I’m sure it’s not that bad,” Siyeon replies easily, that smug grin back on her lips, but it’s so transparent that surely Yoohyeon isn’t the only one to see through it.

“Didn’t your parents ever teach you not to bite off more than you can chew?”

“It does ring a bell,” she says, as if deep in thought, but the act is cut off as one of her arms is twisted more tightly behind her back, and she lets out an involuntary grunt of pain. “Come on, boss man, we all have our ups and downs. Can’t you look the other way just this once? Scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours, and all that.”

“The saying only applies if you actually have something to offer me. Kids like you, you can’t be going around making messes and expect to keep your seat at the grown-up table. You’re more trouble than you’re worth, punk. You’re bothering my clientele.”

There’s a pause. Siyeon seems to be frozen, for once not sure of what to do next. The sight is more painful than any of the bruises Yoohyeon has patched up. Like seeing a drowning man pause in his struggles, just for a second, and knowing that it’s him realizing, for the first time, that he might not make it out of the water.

Then she comes back to life, a feverish new version of herself. With a sharp tug, she escapes the loose hold on her limbs, and rushes forward.

“Hey, hey, let’s not be hasty. I’m spunky, right, but that’s all part of my charm. You know, come for the gambling, stay for the entertainment. I’m sure we can figure something out, huh?”

“I’ve already figured it out, and it’s that you’re not setting foot in my establishment if you’re going to be throwing some fucking tantrum every night.”

“ _Establishment_ ,” she repeats with a snort, then sobers up at once. “No, wait, look, how about this? You always have those pretty girls around, with the trays and the uniforms. I can do that. I don’t look half bad in a skirt.” She grins at her own joke, steps away from the table and towards the bar. A fancy word for the counter towards the end of the room where half a dozen bottles are gathered, along with a few stacks of glasses. “I’ll pour the drinks, eh? That should make the clientele more _amenable_ ,” she slurs out meaningfully, throwing in a wink for good measure.

“The rest of the pretty girls know how to shut their mouths,” one of the big men states flatly, arms crossed over his chest so that his biceps bulge menacingly. Siyeon ignores him.

“Look, I can do the fancy tricks too,” she carries on, eyes only on Yoohyeon’s father as she whips bottles around, slips one behind her back and up into the air, catching it with her other hand. With a flick of her wrist, she twists the cap off and pours a drink with a flourish, then raises it in a toast. “Flashy, right?”

“I don’t need flashy. I need to not have a chatty little brat getting in the way of the people who actually have money to spend.”

At a single authoritative nod, the men approach Siyeon again, cornering her against the bar. They reach for her and she steps back, desperation turning to ugly anger. She swipes her hand towards the counter, sends bottles flying and crashing into ugly dark stains. When she’s finally grabbed, only one remains, standing tall among the rubble. She kicks and struggles as she’s pulled towards the exit, legs snagging against the nearby tables and sending them skittering to the floor, cards and drinks and ashtrays.

With an echoing snap, a hand falls heavily across her face, splitting her lip and dazing her long enough for her legs to be grabbed as well, and then she is carried like a pig on a spit, straight out of the door and onto the pavement outside.

“Don’t come back unless you’ve got a fucking death wish,” one of the men calls out after her, before returning to his seat with a stony face.

Yoohyeon stands frozen, not even remembering to pretend not to care. Her father watches her, the way her mouth hangs half-open, the way her throat seems to lock into a knot so tight that the air can’t seem to get in. He comes to her then, says something she can’t quite process, something about Siyeon being a young girl like her, about things hitting closer, about her being different. She doesn’t listen, not really, but then he tells her to go home, and she does.

She doesn’t go to Siyeon right away. For a moment, she debates just leaving it at that. Not having to see her, after everything that’s just happened. Letting the curtain fall on the two of them, avoiding the painful goodbyes, avoiding the Siyeon that waits outside. The Siyeon that she never wanted to see.

She comes downstairs anyway. It barely feels like a choice.

“So this is the end?” she asks, but it’s not really a question. Siyeon nods. There’s a thin trail of blood running down her chin, swelling across its curve.

“I guess it is.”

Yoohyeon reaches for the blood, realizes she’s holding a dishcloth that she doesn’t remember picking up, but Siyeon stops her with a gentle hold before wiping it away carelessly with her free hand.

“Can we just… Can you keep me company, just for one smoke?” Yoohyeon nods, watches as she pulls out a cigarette, lights up, takes a drag. It’s silent then, and it’s not what she expected. It’s like all the emotion has leaked out of Siyeon, and all that’s left is the girl slowly puffing out clouds of smoke through blood-stained lips. “I promised I’d tell you about her, right? My roommate.”

“You don’t have to-“

“No, I-I want to. I said it would hurt, right? At the end. I can’t make it not hurt, but I just… I want you to know, okay?” Yoohyeon nods again, even though she barely understands, and Siyeon takes a slow drag before looking up, away from Yoohyeon, into the starless sky. “Her name was Bora. We met when I moved to Seoul, hit it off right away. We were the same kind of weird, you know?

“She had a big heart, the type to love at the drop of a hat, and she just had the worst luck with her boyfriends. God, the worst.” She pauses to let out a thick cloud of smoke in a silent laugh. “We moved in after she broke up with the latest one. They were living together, even though I told her it was a bad idea, but you couldn’t talk her out of anything.

“Anyway, she started dating a new guy after that. He was nice, at first.” Another pause, another long drag. She wipes at the fresh blood, still dripping from her split lip, and flinches at the touch. A bitter smile spreads on her lips. “He got in with a bad crowd. Cliché, right? She never told me the specifics, but I could tell most of it. It started with drinking, then light drugs, then not so light. After a while, it wasn’t the crowd anymore, it was all him. One of those addictive personalities, you know?” Her tone is sarcastic, but so heavily tinged with pain that Yoohyeon can’t even be upset at the words and all they bring up for her.

“After a while, his money ran out. Then Bora’s ran out too. I think she would have dumped him, then. Even a hopeless romantic has her limits. There are only so many excuses and promises you can hear before you start to doubt anything is ever going to change.”

“But she didn’t?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.” Her tongue comes out to poke at the wound, too. The blood tints it a darker red before it disappears again. She sniffles against the cold air, then brings up her cigarette, but it’s been smoked down to a tiny stub, so she presses it to the pavement instead. “One more, yeah? We have time for one more.”

Yoohyeon nods, again, because she isn’t sure what else to say. Siyeon pulls out a fresh cigarette from the pack and lights it.

“I got home one day and she was just gone. The whole place was turned upside down, the door was torn off the hinges, and she was gone. And I knew right away, because I knew her, and I knew _him_. So I went to his friends, and they told me he had some new friends. You remember that bad crowd? Well, he found a worse one. A gang, serious bad-guy stuff. That money he owed, it was his head on the chopping block if he didn’t pay it back.”

“He paid it back with Bora,” Yoohyeon finishes for her, the words sticking to the roof of her mouth. Siyeon nods, eyes unreadable in the darkness.

“People pay good money for a pretty girl. And the right kind of girl, a nobody with no family, just another face in the crowd… It’s the perfect crime, isn’t it? Who’s going to stop you?” She sounds so cold as she says it, so matter of fact. It’s the way her world works.

Yoohyeon shivers against the growing cold, wrapping shivering arms around herself. She thinks that maybe Siyeon was right, to treat her like an outsider. As much as she’s lost, they aren’t the same.

She doesn’t know what to say, so she says nothing. She just sits next to Siyeon, inches apart, like they’re on opposite sides of an invisible line, and watches her fill her lungs with smoke, puff it out in hazy shapes. The blood stands out sharply against her pale skin, her pale hair, making her look only half alive.

“I’m sorry, yeah? I didn’t mean for this to happen. I didn’t mean to hurt you.” She’s still looking away as she says it, gaze unfocused. The second cigarette is down to nothing too, and Siyeon leaves it by the other stub, brushes her palms on the knees of her pants. Then she gets up, stumbling slightly, before Yoohyeon can offer a steadying hand.

At the corner of the building, there’s a long rusty pipe snaking up the wall. Siyeon reaches for it, tugs once, twice. Yoohyeon watches her, lost, just sitting by the door of the laundromat. Siyeon tugs again and a length breaks free, solid and menacing. Yoohyeon slowly gets to her feet, takes a step back as Siyeon heads her way, still swaying but unhesitating.

“What are you doing?” she tries, but gets no response. The girl opens the door and heads inside, footsteps loud in the quiet entrance. Then she opens the second door, to the noisy inner room, but the silence keeps.

Yoohyeon finally moves, hurrying to follow her. She stutters at the sight that awaits her, the dozen or so men inside scattered on the floor, sprawled on the nearest table, half-slipping out of their chairs. They’re all collapsed, and for a moment she panics, until she notices their chests rising and falling at a steady rhythm.

Siyeon crosses the room without a second thought, the rusty pipe dragging along the floor behind her. She steps around the bar and then Yoohyeon sees it all in a new light, the crashed bottles and spilled glass, the single bottle that remained. The one that Siyeon had played with, twirling it too quickly to follow.

“You drugged them?” Siyeon nods, doesn’t turn. “How did you- How could you know they’d all drink it? That they’d all pass out?”

At that, Siyeon tugs at the pipe meaningfully. Still, she turns to face Yoohyeon, now standing by the door to the office. “They’re all drinkers tonight. And they all like whiskey.”

“You planned this.”

Siyeon nods again. She weighs the pipe in her hands, swings it in the air experimentally. Yoohyeon wants to ask more, to find what Siyeon expects to see behind that locked door, but she doesn’t speak. Some instinct deep at the core of herself tells her not to probe, not to know, not to look. There’s a reason doors are locked.

A crash fills her ears, wood splinters and caves in, and Siyeon steps through the rubble she’s made, kicking away the remainders of the door still blocking her way. Yoohyeon follows, hesitant, fighting the reluctance.

She steps inside the room she’s never visited, a small space with a desk and a safe. It’s just an office, bare but functional, and for a moment she’s filled with a confusing sense of relief, until she sees the other door. Siyeon smashes through it just as easily, and beyond it stretches a hallway.

It shouldn’t be there. There’s no room for it. It must cross over to the building next door. But why-

Siyeon breaks through one last door, then drops the pipe heavily on the wooden floor and disappears inside. Yoohyeon can do nothing but follow, see the way the hallway is lined with doors, three on each side. And inside the open door, a small room, and Siyeon clinging tightly to a girl, someone Yoohyeon recognizes. She’s seen her so many nights, pouring drinks, right next to her.

Something inside her twists. She knows it before she hears anything they say, the tearful whispers they exchange.

“I tried so hard. I tried to pretend like I didn’t know you,” the shorter girl is saying in a stuttering, airy voice.

“You did so good. You did great, unnie.” 

The girl – Bora, Yoohyeon knows it’s Bora – pulls away gently, frames Siyeon’s face with gentle fingers. “They hurt you.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Siyeon says, and she’s smiling like Yoohyeon has never seen, so hard that the cut on her lip opens again. “It doesn’t matter at all.”

There are five other rooms in that hallway. Yoohyeon eyes each of them, then the pipe on the dusty floor. She reaches down, grabs it, struggles for a moment with the unexpected weight. Then she straightens herself up, runs her fingers absently through the rough patches of rust dotting its surface.

It’s never felt heavy, the life she leads. She’s never felt burdened, weighed down, dragging her every step.

No, it’s always felt light, impossibly light. Like a helium balloon, she drifts, kept anchored to earth by the thinnest thread. Like a balloon, she is so light, so weightless, that all her strength pulling away looks like nothing at all. Wherever she is tugged, she goes, her resistance as meaningful as a light breeze.

It doesn’t feel any better, she thinks, than the heaviness. It’s just a different kind of trapped.

But as she stands there, looking around herself, a strange new feeling takes hold of her. It’s as if that tiny, feather-light thread connecting her to the world has just vanished. Like the child’s hand that has been tightly clutching it has lost its grip, for only a moment, a fatal moment, and she is off.

She feels herself going up, and up, and up, and the world growing smaller and smaller beneath her, blurring into indistinguishable shapes and colours. She feels herself disappear into the vast empty skies above, into the dizzying heights, and the vertigo is nausea, and the nausea clings to the pit of her stomach with every crash of the pipe into sturdy wood, with every harsh breath she reminds herself to take.

There’s a hand on her shoulder, applying a pressure that should be comforting. It falls just short, but it does pull her back into herself, makes her stop, realize how heavily she’s breathing.

One other girl has stumbled out of the row of rooms, through what remains of its door. She looks dazed, not quite there, but she still moves as quickly as she can manage, as if on auto-pilot. She clings to Bora with one hand while the other rests against the nearest wall, steadying her.

“They already took the others,” Bora says gently, almost sympathetic. “They can’t move too many at once.” Yoohyeon wants to throw up.

“This is why you thought I’d hate you,” she says, her voice strangely rough. She’s not looking at Siyeon, just gazing straight ahead at one of the empty rooms.

“At first,” the girl agrees from behind her.

“Were you using me? For information?”

“At first.”

She drops the pipe. Her hand hurts from swinging it so hard, the skin raw from the careless handling.

“What will happen to him?”

She thinks of her father, unconscious just outside. She thinks of all their financial problems, all the problems that he caused. She thinks of Bora’s boyfriend, who sold her to save his skin. At least he only sold the one girl. How many has her father gone through? How dare he act like he was protecting her, like the others had thrown their lives away.

“Whatever gang he’s working for… They’ll hold him responsible.”

 _You’re nothing like them_.

How easy was it for him to draw that line? The women worth saving, and the women to be used. Was it any line at all? Or just another way for him to relieve his conscience?

She nods. She swallows thickly against whatever has settled in her throat. “Okay,” she says simply.

A hand slides into hers, the pressure a little painful against the stinging skin, but mostly warm and solid and _there_. She feels them both behind her, Bora on one side, Siyeon on the other.

“Let’s go?” Bora asks, without hesitation, without reservation. Yoohyeon nods again. They step outside, the other girl coming with them, both arms around Bora’s now as though it’s her only safe haven. They step around the bodies that litter the room, upstairs where Yoohyeon quickly gathers her things.

It’s so much easier than she thought it would be. She fits all she owns into a single bag, and suddenly the apartment that she has lived in for so much of her life barely looks like a home.

Everything’s changed so quickly. She throws a look over her shoulder, at Siyeon standing by the kitchen table, hand squeezing Bora’s tightly like she’s afraid she’ll disappear if she lets go for even a second. She looks at her, really looks at her, at the drying blood on her lip and the map of bruises on her naked shoulder, and she looks so much like the Siyeon that has made her way deep inside her heart, like the inside of her that was always hiding behind everything else has finally spread and painted over the rest of it.

The warmth growing inside Yoohyeon feels too good to be true, treacherous after so long navigating quicksand. It was all an act, the parts of Siyeon that dug into her heart like jagged blades. She smiles and Siyeon smiles back and she gets it, all of a sudden and completely. Why Bora would tell her she had a baby face. She lets out a laugh that neither of them gets, and then she settles the bag over her shoulder and they come back downstairs.

In the darkness of the front room of the laundromat, she pauses. The other three go on ahead by silent agreement and she slips down to sit on the cool tile. She watches the large empty drums of the washing machines all around her, the way the metal inside glistens and shifts under the light as she tilts her head one way and the other.

And then, just like that, she leaves.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! If you liked it, go give Bibi's MV a view, and feel free to check me out on twitter @numot94 
> 
> Until next time!


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